Tourism in Thunder Bay held its own last year despite a slight decline in visitors to the city says tourism manager Paul Pepe.
In a report to city council Monday night, Pepe said 419,000 people came to Thunder Bay last year even though a high Canadian dollar, slow North American economy and poor weather conditions set unprecedented poor tourism conditions. Pepe attributed the resilience to a shift in Tourism Thunder Bay’s marketing focus to attract tourists who wouldn’t depend on those factors to come to the city.
"We recognized going into last year that there were going to be markets that would stop travelling and we recognized that there are markets out there that are affluent, are educated are avid experience seekers," Pepe said. "So we focused on them."
Touring visitors, such as motorcycle enthusiasts, and people looking for outdoor activities became a central focus said Pepe. Pepe dais marketing Thunder Bay as a gateway to those activities helped U.S. residents crossing into Canada decline only .08 per cent even though the national average was down 9.2 per cent.
"The experiences don’t necessarily happen in Thunder Bay but they might happen around Thunder Bay," Pepe said.
While hotel occupancy rate was down over 3 per cent from 2008, Pepe said the rate was still higher than Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie. A lot of the drop had to do with a slow economy’s impact on conventions and conferences said Pepe.
"The number of corporate events didn’t decrease at all but the number of delegates that people were sending to events certainly declined as companies were tightening their belts across North America," Pepe said.
Coun. Joe Virdiramo wanted to know if Tourism Thunder Bay keeps track of such tourism reviews like Lonely Planet which referred to Thunder Bay as having a "small town environment". Virdiramo also said the site called Thunder Bay an "isolated town". Pepe said those remarks aren’t necessarily negative as people from large urban centres want to get away from busy cities sometimes.
Coun. Brian McKinnon wanted to know why Northwestern Ontario was left out of an Ontario tourism advertisement during the Olympics. Pepe said Tourism Thunder Bay has so many partnerships with the province’s tourism ministry, he’s not too worried about the impact of one commercial.
"There are so many places where we can showcase Thunder Bay in a single area I don’t get to worked up," said Pepe.
Also Monday, high school football players in Thunder Bay will be playing on NFL-quality artificial turf after council awarded the rehabilitation on Fort William Stadium to NMP Golf Construction. The $2.7 million project also includes upgrading the track, along with new throwing venues, so Thunder Bay could have the potential to host national track and field competitions.
The city’s share of the project, $500,000, comes from a TbayTel performance dividend. The remaining 80 per cent of the funding will be provided by the province, federal government and school boards.
